Masks by Fumiko Enchi

ties between mother- and daughter-in-law. He fretted with the acute discomfort of someone who is forced to swallow a medicine.
    It was past eleven when he stood up.
    “We can’t have you walking home in all this snow,” said Mieko, proposing to call a taxi, but Ibuki declined the offer and headed down the long, dimly lighted old corridor toward the front door. Slightly drunk, he was conscious of a growing desire to embrace Yasuko, but she clung as closely as ever to Mieko and made no move in his direction.
    Mieko was warmed by the liquor, and the provocative, vaguely medicinal odor that emanated from her clothing struck him full in the face like a cloud of smoke. He felt like a man being escorted by two prostitutes down the hall of a brothel in some long-ago time. Yasuko did not come with him out the front door. Instead it was Yū, her back bentand her hair disheveled in reminder of some recent illness, who preceded him down the walk to unlock the small wicket gate.
    A large bell attached to the gate rang with an old-fashioned clanging as it opened, and then a clump of snow on the bamboo leaves beside him slid suddenly to the ground.
    “Are you wet?” Yasuko’s voice called from the doorway.
    Turning, he saw her standing before the door with an arm around the shoulders of a young woman larger than her. The other woman wore a lavender kimono in a splashed pattern, and her face floated up pure white in the light of a lantern hanging suspended from the eaves. It was the face he had seen in the garden on the night of the firefly party, but now, in the reflected light of the snow, it was still more hauntingly beautiful.
    “Good night, sir, and do be careful,” said Yū, closing the gate as if to hide the scene behind.
    “Good-bye.” Yasuko’s voice echoed emptily and aimlessly.
    Setting off toward the main road down a path of frozen snow, Ibuki was in a licentious frame of mind, the desires left unsatisfied by Yasuko now gathering around Harumé, whose arms and shoulders had seemed so round and firm. He longed to seize her roughly. Ibuki recognized the viscid flow of emotion between Yasuko and Mieko as, he felt, unclean, yet he was aware also of his own paradoxical desire to enter that unclean moistness.
    —
    “Ibuki! Where are you headed?”
    Ibuki turned around to see Mikamé behind the wheel of his Hillman, leaning his head out the car window. His boyish face was full-fleshed and ruddy in color, but his eyes gleamed with the uneasy light of an animal stalking itsprey—a sinister look no doubt attributable to his daily contact with the mentally unsound.
    “You said you had class today, so I stopped by your office to see if you were there.”
    “Then we almost missed each other, because I was about to head over to your place. Okay if I get in?”
    “Be my guest.”
    “I’ll sit in back.” Ibuki bent his tall frame and crawled inside the automobile, then leaned back in weary comfort.
    “Where to?”
    “Wherever you say. Just so I get home before tomorrow.”
    “Well then, where shall it be…Ginza?” Handling the steering wheel with a practiced air, Mikamé added, “I’ve drawn up a sort of protocol on Mieko Toganō.”
    “You’re turning into quite the detective. I don’t envy you—as if Heian ghosts weren’t enough, now you’ve got Mieko to worry about, too?” Ibuki grinned as if the matter had nothing to do with him, did not even interest him.
    Mikamé stopped the car before the revolving doors of a large hotel near Shimbashi Station.
    “What’s this? It’s too early for dinner.”
    “Never mind. Just follow me.” Leaning an elbow on the front desk, Mikamé spoke briefly and familiarly to the clerk, then took a key and headed toward the elevator.
    “Are you renting a room here? How extravagant of you.”
    “Not really. The rates are reasonable, so I use this place now and then to do some work.”
    “What sort of work, pray tell?” said Ibuki mockingly, solemn-faced.
    Mikamé twirled the